Get Lucky, by Suzanne Brockmann

Get Lucky is one of my favourites in Suzanne Brockmann's TD&D series. It and Harvard's Education are the two entries I reread regularly.

LUCKY...IN LOVE?
An unlikely state of affairs. For Navy SEAL Lucky O'Donlon was the original love-'em-and-leave-'em guy. Used to women swooning at his feet. So how could it be that the adorably quick-witted and frustratingly attractive journalist Sydney Jameson seemingly had nothing to offer him...but one very cold shoulder?

Well, two could play at this game. But first things first -- he and Sydney had a job to do. They had to get their man.

Then there would be time enough for him to get his woman....

I enjoyed it just as much this time as I did the first 5 times I read this ;-) My grade: an A-.

I suppose the reason Get Lucky works so well is the fact that it taps into what has to be a major fantasy for many women: that the charismatic, movie-star handsome golden boy can be a nice, sensitive, genuine person and can fall like a ton of bricks for someone like us, non-supermodel body, good brain and all.

Brockmann tells this story well, making the characters live, and become their own persons. Lucky is wonderful, with just the right degree of vulnerability to make him even more attractive and not that much larger than life, and Sydney was immensely likeable. Her reactions to this god seeming to be interested in her rang true, and I liked that she refused to be manipulated by Lucky when he tried to do so at the beginning of the book.

The suspense subplot was pretty good. I much prefer Brockmann's SEAL books when said SEALs are doing non-military stuff. And this kind of ties in to what I saw as the main thing that could improve the story: cutting the SEAL stuff a bit. I've said a few times already that I prefer to stay away from military romance, and though I make an exception for Brockmann, I can't help but wish that she'd go back to writing about civilians. The ubiquitous explanations about what it meant to be a SEAL and what SEAL training is like, and so on and so forth felt out of place here.

That was a small problem, however, and I enjoyed this one very much, especially Brockmann's writing style. It's a very distinctive style, and I know it bothers some people, but for me, it works. This is one of the few authors whose books I'd buy without even skimming the back blurb!